Near field payment refers to that when a consumer purchases a commodity or service, payment to a vendor is performed by using a mobile phone instantly, payment processing is performed on site, and local communication with a vending machine and a point of sale (POS) machine is implemented offline by using a channel such as mobile phone radio frequency (NFC), infrared or Bluetooth.
In conventional near field payment, generally hardware of a mobile phone needs to be reconstructed or a hardware accessory needs to be added. Because of varied technical standards, it is very difficult to spread related hardware devices and payment solutions relying on such hardware devices in a short period of time. Under this background, innovative payment solutions where near field information is exchanged with the help of emerging technologies such as two-dimensional code (barcode) scanning, acoustic wave modulation, and mobile phone geographic location information, and then payment is completed by using a mature online payment technology are put forward one by one. These solutions are commonly characterized in that payment is performed in a near field, and does not depend on any special hardware device.
The technical principle of two-dimensional code (barcode) payment is that one party of a transaction compiles information into a two-dimensional or one-dimensional pattern according to different barcode standards, and the other party performs scanning by using a camera on a mobile phone and then restores from the pattern the information hidden in the pattern, thereby completing information exchange between both the parties of the transaction.
In acoustic wave payment, an essential microphone and earphone on a mobile phone are used. A transaction number or other key information related to a transaction is modulated through audio and then played by using a microphone on a mobile phone, and another mobile phone approaches the mobile phone that sends out the sound, records the sound by using an earphone, then may restore the information modulated into the sound by decoding the recorded sound, and then may perform payment according to the related information.
Payment based on geographic location information is typically “shake” payment. The current practice of the “shake” payment is that, when a user shakes a mobile phone, the mobile phone uploads its own geographic location information to a backend server; when finding that multiple persons shake mobile phones at a same location, the backend server recommends another person to the user, and the user may select a nearby person who is currently shaking a mobile phone to perform a transaction.
However, all the above solutions have some disadvantages. The two-dimensional code (barcode) payment depends on the widespread of two-dimensional code identifiers of commodities and construction of a barcode database, the acoustic wave payment requires a relatively quiet transaction site, the conventional “shake” payment is not intelligent enough that if multiple persons are all shaking mobile phones in a near field, a transaction object needs to be manually selected from multiple possible transaction objects, resulting in low efficiency and easy occurrence of errors.